Two grizzly bears at the Saskatoon Forestry Farm Park and Zoo are hibernating for the first time in their lives.
Eleven-year-olds Koda and Mistaya have been sound asleep in a temperature-controlled, blacked-out bear den at the zoo for about two weeks.
“We are pleased to be able to provide Koda and Mistaya with an opportunity to exhibit their natural behaviour of hibernating for the very first time,” Forestry Farm manager Tim Sinclair-Smith said in a media release.
The project came about after the zoo joined a partnership with the Foothills Research Institute in Alberta. Researchers leading the project are aiming to keep the bears in as natural environment as possible — which means a long winter nap.
Veterinarians say the bears’ transition to hibernation was easy. The keepers stopped feeding the animals meat, moved them to a fruit and forage diet, and then removed food altogether before the bears began hibernating.
The research team is hoping to use the bears’ hairs to gather information on the animals’ reproduction, stress levels and growth.
